Having documented nearly every stage of Tailor’s much-delayed development, we couldn’t very well pass up experiencing its promised joys. We attended last night’s soft opening, camera in one hand and Eben Freeman cocktail in the other. The official opening is tonight and more photos are after the jump.
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Tonight, coyer-than-thou Fred Dalton Thompson finally steps into the Republican race with ads on the always-friendly Fox News, a Leno appearance, a Webcast going live at midnight, and then a multi-state fly-around where he might actually talk with real people.
At the moment, it's unclear whether Thompson is the new Ronald Reagan or another Chauncey Gardner. He was right about one thing: He skipped the first half of Republican Death March to '08, and it so did not matter. Thompson didn't pay hard cash to grassroots get-a-lifers communing with the same seventeen Ames, Iowa, activists. There were no clandestine meetings with the South Carolina black ops guys who did in McCain back in 2000. Instead, Thompson smoked cigars at his Virginia home, played with his kids, and watched the field self-implode.
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The fun thing about possible presidential candidates, as opposed to merely undeclared ones, is that everything they do has two parallel explanations. Take our own billionaire mayor, who's now inviting scrutiny with things as trivial as a mere mansion purchase. Bloomberg, the Observerreports, has picked up 1014 Madison Avenue, which houses a historic gallery, for $40 million. Since he also owns the adjacent 25 East 78th and can now connect the two buildings as long as he doesn't futz with the landmark façades, this places Bloomie well on his way to carving a 32,000-square-foot compound out of the hood (oh yeah, he also owns a townhouse one block up). Does the purchase, gallery and all, mean the mayor's about to settle into comfy retirement filled with charity balls and such? Or is he building the most awesome campaign HQ ever?
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